Electric only option on GC6AA-10E?

[nastonius]

Howdy y’all!

We’re new owners of a ‘18 Prowler Lynx 30LX. I’m trying to figure out if we can run our water heater on electricity only. I’ve dug thru the HUGs for help, but haven’t been able to get a clear answer. I’ve seen where som have a switch outside behind the door, but my Atwood unit doesn’t have one of those. I have the switch in the bathroom set to LP off, Electric on. I can’t find a secondary wall switch like many people have. There is an unlabeled switch by the main lights, awning, and slide switches.

Any help will be greatly appreciated!

 

[danemayer]

Hi nastonius,

Suburban water heaters have a secondary switch, but so far as I know, no Atwood water heaters have one. So the switch inside should fire up th electric element. And the information on that model does say it has both gas and electric modes.

Atwood units have a single reset button for overtemp shutoffs, so if the gas mode is working, that probably doesn't need to be pressed.

It's possible to burn out the electric heating element on water heaters if the electric operation is run without water in the tank.

On Atwood units, the control board on the water heater is involved in both gas and electric operation. The board likely fires a relay that passes 120V AC to the heating element.

So possible failure areas to examine would be:

• Switch wiring and operation
• 120V AC to the water heater - should be a junction box on the water heater.
• Wire connections between coach and water heater.
• Control board
• Relay between heating element and control board
• Heating element

If you want to try and diagnose and repair this yourself, here's a link to some Atwood Info.

 

[JohnDar]

Check out this video on your water heater model. If the electric heating element has been burnt out, they've hidden it pretty well. On Suburban models, it's much easier to find.

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?...=Atwood+GC6AA-10E+Heating+Element&FORM=VDMHRS

 

[nastonius]

Thanks y’all. It was all user error. The DSI Fault light was on after we ran out of propane, and I hadn’t reset it. 🤦🏼*♂️

 

[danemayer]

Thanks y’all. It was all user error. The DSI Fault light was on after we ran out of propane, and I hadn’t reset it. 🤦🏼*♂️

Ok, but the DSI Fault Light is for a propane ignition failure. So you may have hot water again but is it from 120V AC, or propane/12V DC?

 

[nastonius]

Has to be 120VAC, since we went a day or two before I filled the propane tanks, and we had hot water in that time.

 

[JohnD]

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